244 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN&US 



vast hollow fringed with blue, the border of which basin 

 sometimes rises into a purple battlemented wall. They 

 soon began the descent. Here man stepped into the 

 scenery and set his huts among the great gables of the 

 mountains. How dwarfed and ugly are all human works 

 in a place where even the Parthenon would look like a 

 packing-case ! The huts at RoraSs are infinitely mean 

 and ugly. It is a poverty-stricken Falun tossed 2,000 

 feet into the air. 



The interiors are more comfortable to view, and 

 here men resume their natural proportions. Du Chaillu 

 describes them as ' men in knee-breeches, white woollen 

 stockings, double-breasted waistcoat with shiny brass 

 buttons, and red Phrygian caps/ The hut that housed 

 him holds ' old porcelain dishes and cups heirlooms ; 

 a lantern hung from a beam in the ceiling ; an old clock 

 near the bed.' Hedenblad and Sandel take no notice of 

 these every-day details. The copper mines at RoraSs have 

 been worked since 1644. The town is 2,000 feet above the 

 sea level ; the Storvarts mines 2,800 feet. 1 The Hitter 

 River flows through the centre of the town, the two parts 

 of which are connected by wooden Norwegian bridges. 

 The large church was not built in bur travellers' time ; 

 but the woods were then more abundant and the climate 

 milder. The wolf and the glutton, the reindeer's greatest 

 enemies, were common in these woods. At present the 

 country round Roma's is remarkably bare and bleak. 



The young naturalists found the Norwegians dirty 

 1 H. Marryatt. 



